The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists.

This statement is associated with William Jennings Bryan’s public campaign in the early 1920s against the teaching of biological evolution in tax-supported schools. In speeches and writings leading up to the Scopes “Monkey Trial” (1925), Bryan argued that public education should reflect the religious convictions of the taxpayers who funded it and that teachers should not use the classroom to undermine students’ Christian faith. The quote reflects Bryan’s broader populist framing of the issue as one of democratic control over public institutions—especially schools—rather than as a purely scientific dispute.

Bryan frames public education as a trust funded by taxpayers and therefore accountable to parents’ moral and religious expectations. The line reflects his broader anti-evolution and pro–biblical literalism activism in the 1920s, when he argued that teaching evolution in publicly funded schools undermined Christianity and social order. By casting skeptical outcomes (“agnostics, or atheists”) as a kind of theft—teachers “rob” children of faith—he shifts the issue from academic freedom to parental rights and civic control over curricula. The quote is significant as a succinct statement of the populist, majoritarian rationale used to justify restrictions on teaching evolution in the lead-up to the Scopes era.